13 July 2011

I have been guilty of using most of my blog writing, Fb viewing and other pursuits’ time for watching Hindi serials on Star Plus.

Yes, I admit it. Publicly. Can this be the same person who used to scorn daily serials and rage at reality shows? This is still me. But how have I changed so much?

I don’t know. But it might have something to do with the fact that the shows nowadays are a far cry from the pathetic offerings that were being dished out a few years ago on DD, before I left India, ie, 1990s.

The ones nowadays are almost always well-written and extremely well-presented. They are the movies of the small screen – they have the grandeur and maturity that was so far associated only with full-length feature films. Exotic locales, great costumes and sets, authentic (although only Hindi) accents, lovely large families that celebrate all the Hindu festivals, good strong characters played by talented actors and even dishum-dishum.

So, it’s not surprising that I am trying to assuage my pangs of homesickness or movie-sickness with Star Plus.

Of course, not all the serials or shows are great. The reality shows, although very well presented, will still be reality shows, ie, totally fake. And there will always be serials where the only focus is the maamiyar-marumagal (or to give it the Hindi equivalent of saas-bahu) relationship and both the storyline and characters are more negative and stereotyped than required.

But I give these a wide berth.

And then, there are also the serials that change tack mid-way. From perfect watchable ones, they suddenly become completely unbearable. The characters become flawed, weakened and unbelievable. I switch off.

Earlier, not knowing Hindi could have been a possible drawback (not for me, though). But now, there are sub-titles for all the shows, full of horrible translations, grammatical errors and wrongly spelt names (eg, ‘Sudha bhabhi’ becomes ‘sister-in-law Sudha’ , Akshara is Aksha, etc*shudder*) . Even so, good enough to let you know what is happening.

My only grouse is that Star gazing takes up too much precious time and leaves me with next to no time for my other activities, as I’ve already said.

So what do I do? Of course, being a woman, I multitask (*sigh of relief* at least I have that choice). Fb + StarPlus or housework + Star Plus or Skype + Star Plus and sometimes even reading + Star Plus.

There aren’t possibly many other worse things that I could do to while away my non-existent free time. But at least, I am relaxed doing this.

I almost shed tears of joy when Akshara’s saas praises her. I hold back my tears when Khushi shivers in the cold, while doing her arrogant boss’s bidding. But since I know that they are going to fall in love with each other, I forgive him. I pity Devyani, who has to hide the secret that her son is gay, from her philandering husband. etc etc.

Aaaah, show me an Indian who doesn’t love a spicy sentimental story, and I will show you a freak!